a bit of caminopedia for an unrelated camino

Carter was kind enough to inform me of the existence of an El Camino college in Compton, California the other day, and I must admit to an early sense of accomplishment and pure giddiness at the thought of having a scholarly institution erected in my honor. Sadly, this was not the case.

Compton’s El Camino College was in fact named for Lord John Jacob Bodelwyddan Lucien “El” Camino, no relation, Earl of Bangwynbury and inventor of the car-truck hybrid that bears his name. This feat was especially impressive when one considers that Lord Camino’s work predates the inventions of both the car and the truck.

Other, lesser known facts and inventions from Camino’s body of work include a vehicle comprised of the front of a bass boat and hind quarters of a zamboni, the sousaphone, the phrase Don’t go there, girlfriend, penicillin, the Franklin stove, B-movies dealing mainly with women in prison, the prosthetic moustache, Peanut Butter Cap’n Crunch cereal, apathy, Tesla coils, and a friendly toy known to impressionable nineteenth century children as “Jiggles, the Pantsless Marmot”. His “Jiggle me Jiggles” variation on the toy was the must-have Christmas toy of eighteen hundred and fifty-nine. However, the American Civil War was soon to put a damper on the pantsless Marmot rage of the mid-nineteenth century.

Broken and penniless, Camino then retired to California where he was a founding member CRIPS gang, which originally stood for “Camino’s Ragtime Internet Pep Squad”. Camino was once again showing considerable foresight, as this collective predated the actual Internet by well over a century.

Sadly, the group had turned to general mischief and shenanigans by the time technology caught up.